Madison's newest radio station is on air, broadcasting a low-power signal at 99.1 WIDE-FM.
Six years in the planning, the station is the collaborative work of local nonprofits and church groups. From 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., community access programming airs under the moniker CityWIDE. At night, SoulWIDE plays a mix of Christian music.
When the signal went live last Saturday, the first broadcast sounds were the strains of blues music, according to Erik Howland, a programmer with local nonprofit DANEnet. It wasn't planned that way, he admits; that's just what the radio automation software happened to be playing.
Simply getting the station on the air was triumph enough, according to organizers. They've been wrestling with Federal Communication Commission regulations, zoning permits and other organizational tangles almost as long as the FCC has been granting low-power licenses to noncommercial groups.
The station has a limited listening range, complicated by Madison's hilly topography. Broadcast from a temporary antenna in a valley on the near west side, it can be heard as far east as Stoughton Road, said Howland. But the Capitol and other natural and man-made high points sometimes block the weak signal.
Once some zoning issues are cleared up, the antenna will be moved to a higher altitude a few blocks away at the corner of Mineral Point Road and Glenway Street. ...
